Summer of 1872

Every day when the sun dips low enough to gild the wave-tops copper, I slip away from the house—past the watchful windows, the clucking hens, the narrow glances of the village—and down the cliff path to where my little rowing boat waits, half-hidden among the bladderwrack.

I bring gifts tucked inside the oilskin satchel: a slice of seed cake wrapped in muslin, a handful of late strawberries, the newest volume of Middlemarch. The oars dip quietly; the water is smooth as mirror-glass this time of year. And there she is.

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She rises just enough so that the sea parts around her shoulders like silk parting from skin, wet hair streaming, eyes catching the last of the light. Each evening she waits in almost exactly the same place and every time my heart stumbles over itself, half from relief, half from something softer and more dangerous I dare not name.

Her English grows bolder with every visit. New words tumble from her like treasures pulled from shipwrecks: sunset, strawberry, Clara. She says my name slowly, tasting each syllable as though it were one of the sweets I bring. And the way she looks at me… God help me, the way she looks at me. As though I were the rarest thing the tide ever carried in. As though a plain vicar’s daughter in a faded blue dress were more miraculous than all the drowned gold of the Spanish Main.

I trail my fingers in the water between us, pretending the shiver that runs up my arm is only from the cold.

“Do you wait for me all afternoon?” I ask tonight, voice barely louder than the lap of waves against the hull.